Thursday, October 18, 2007

Deborah Kerr, a beautiful, classy lady who lit up the movies and the stage. part of Hollywood's most famous kisses in "From Here to Eternity" and danced with the Siamese monarch in "The King and I," has died. She was 86.

Kerr, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died Tuesday in Suffolk in eastern England, her agent, Anne Hutton, said Thursday.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Kerr six times for best actress, but never gave her an Academy Award until it presented an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her distinguished career as an "artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance."

From the late 1960s, Kerr focused on theatre and television roles.The actress was married twice and was made a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998.

Doris Day was arguably the most popular actress . She was in top ten money maker for 10 years ( only Elizabeth Taylor and Betty Grable can achieved that status BUT Doris Day is the only one who spend NO. 1 for for 4 years). Such a popularity people may overlooked her career as a singer. In term of charts success as a singer . She had 5 No.1 single and 56 top 40 hits .Here is her US. #1

Surprisingly, two of Day's most popular song did hit the top spot "it's Magic" peak #2 . 1956 "What ever will be (Que' Sera ,Sera)" held No.2 for three weeks and spend more than a couple month on top 5 . It was kept from top spot from by that year's most popular hit , Elvis Presley " Don't be Cruel / Hound Dog"

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Carmen Miranda, or rather her ghost, is the subject of a song by Leslie Fish called "Carmen Miranda's ghost is haunting Space Station Three". There is also a book by that name, containing a collection of short stories. The only connection between the stories is that each have to do with the title.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

1963 was the worst year for US film production in fifty years (there were only 121 feature releases). And the largest number of foreign films released in the US in any one year was in 1964 (there were 361 foreign releases in the US vs. 141 US releases).

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Richard Egan plays a former lifeguard who returns to the Maine island summer resort, where he'd worked years in his younger days, as a millionaire with his bigoted wife Helen (Constance Ford) and comely teenage daughter Molly (Sandra Dee). The resort has fallen on hard times financially and is currently run by Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), the drunken son of the man who'd built it. He now lives there year round with his wife Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), who'd had a passionate affair with lifeguard Ken in her youth, and their hunk son Johnny (Troy Donahue). *

Overly glossy soap opera which could do nothing to overcome the basic shallowness of the characters being portrayed. ** One is between Egan and McGuire; the other is with Dee and Donahue. ... The wealthy Egan and family come back to the small New England town where he was an impoverished lifeguard 20 years earlier and where he carried on a lusty affair with McGuire. ... Meanwhile, Egan's daughter, Dee, is carrying on with Donahue, and mother Ford looms over Dee's shoulder worrying about whether she is

Though there is an attempt to make these situations seem highly dramatic, the performances are little more than stereotypes, a result of the wretched dialog. This film was surprisingly frank about sex and illicit romantic affairs, much more so than PEYTON PLACE had been just two years earlier. New York Times article, Daves was quoted as saying that the "two affairs [in the film] May sound sensational, but...we have received the approval of the Johnston Office because the intent of the picture is a moral one." Variety review, the film "makes the most of Hollywood's newly-discovered freedom to display the voluminous vocabulary of sex....A couple of years ago, A Summer Place wouldn't have been made." The Hollywood Reporter review stated, "It is an absorbing study of sex as it affects most of our lives, though no civilized person will find in it anything that is cheap or nasty...." On the other hand, the New York Times review reported that Wilson's "novel emerges as one of the most laboriously and garishly sex-scented movies in years," and the Los Angeles Mirror review described A Summer Place as "so preoccupied with sex, you would think it has just been invented."

The film was a box office hit, pandering as it did to both old and young, also did well at the box office, . An orchestral rendition of the love theme from Max Steiner's score, as recorded by Percy Faith and sung by The Letterman placed number one on popular music charts for many weeks and was awarded a Grammy for the 1960 Record of the Year

Since the film was released, the music has become iconic, often used briefly in films or television programs to signal love at first sight or young love. The music and scenes from the film have appeared in numerous later films, among them, Diner (1982) and Ocean's Eleven (2001).

* Classic Film Guide** TV Guide

Did You Know???

Hollywood Reporter news item reported that the role of Molly, which was played by Sandra Dee, was "meant for" Natalie Wood. According to a modern source, Wood later regretted turning down the part.

According to a November 2002 Hollywood Reporter news item, Edmonds Entertainment and Storyopolis were planning a remake of A Summer Place, to be written by Nicholas DiBella and to star Mandy Moore. The producers of the respective companies were Tracey and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, and Fonda Snyder. As of May 2005, this project has not been realize

The house where Ken (Richard Egan) and Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire) lived toward the end of the film is an actual private residence that was built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1948. It still stands today on Scenic Road in Carmel-by-the-Sea and is a prime feature in local tours.

Initial considerations for the role of Helen Jorgenson included Teresa Wright and Olivia de Havilland.

Richard Egan's (Ken) impassioned speech to his wife about her disgraceful bigotry was so powerful that an entire packed audience at Radio City Music Hall gave it an immediate standing ovation.